The PadFone's long journey took a major step forwards Monday as AsusTEK Computer Inc (Asus), the Taiwanese electronics company which parlayed success in the consumer space with the Eee netbook into a position as a top-five global PC seller, announced that the latest incarnation, the PadFone X, would be released in the US as an
AT&T exclusive later this year. Pricing and the exact release date have yet to be announced.

Jeff Bradley , Senior Vice President of Devices for AT&T, was quoted as saying "The PadFone X is first of its kind in the U.S. It combines leading technology, a beautiful design and a remarkably seamless application experience" - along with similar press-ready nostra. However, from experience of the PadFone range, he is not wholly wrong, if also not entirely right.

Charming cameleopard

The original PadFone was a flawed device, but based on an intriguing concept - that, since mobile users very rarely used their phones and tablets simultaneously, it was an unecessary expense to force them to pay out for two mobile processors. Instead, the PadFone put all its smarts in the phone part, which then docked with a larger screen (internally filled largely with additional battery) to create a tablet when needed.

The Padfone Infinity ironed out many of the PadFone's wrinkles - among them the fiddly docking system an the low resolution - to create a genuinely competent dual-screen experience. However, it was still not significantly cheaper than a mid-range phone and mid-range tablet. It was a solid and intriguing device, but not one picked up by the mass market.

The Padfone X retains much of the styling of the Padfone Infinity, with a 5" phone screen and 1920x1080 high-definition display. The dock has been shrunk slightly, from a 10.1" screen to a 9" screen, which may resolve the slightly strange alteration of screen definition in the Padfone Infinity. Also updated is the operating system, to Android 4.4 KitKat. One of the winning features of the PadFone Infinity was its adherence to a near-stock version of Android - Asus has generally been good about not loading its tablets and phones with too much superfluous skinning. This time around, the PadFone ships with ZenUI, a custom UI over Android that looks a little like Aviate on first glance , with helpful groupings of apps on the front pages.

PadFones are generally powerful devices for their spec, and the X handset is likely to be on a par with a modern upper-end smartphone. A low-cost alternative, the PadFone Mini, which docks a 4" phone with a 7" screen, uses a Cloverview Z2560 Atom processor - consideranly more oomph should be expected of the X.

Asus announced a series of new releases today, among them the ROG Swift 1440p monitor for gamers, the WaCom digitizer-equipped 8" VivoTab Note Windows tablet, the oddly versatile Transformer Book Duet (able to switch between Windows 8 and Android in either tablet or laptop mode) and three midmarket, Atom-powered, Android 4.3 phones, the ZenPhone 4, 5 and 6, with similar specs across three different diagonals. However, if AT&T and Asus can get the pricing right, and the value proposition can be communicated effectively, the PadFone X might be, along with the unassuming Transfomer T100 (of which more later) the start of a serious new attempt on the two-horse race of the US tablet market.

I am currently a Contributing Editor at Wired Magazine in the UK, having written for Wired UK since its launch in 2009, and speak regularly on the impact of developing technologies on consumer behaviors at Wired Consulting events and elsewhere.